Sales Training Motivational Speaker | Gavin Ingham» selling in a recession

Better Business Focus: Weathering The Storm

Gavin Ingham — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 17:55:57 +0000

Better Business Focus magazine’s January issue is entitled Weathering the Storm and in it you can read the following articles…

Weathering the storm by John Stanley
Best advice I ever got… maybe
Ask questions by Paul Sloane
Bestselling business books
Customer loyalty: why one number is not enough by David Jackson
Effective purchasing by Colin Coulson-Thomas
10 reasons why small businesses fail
Connect to your customers through your customers by Ron Kaufman
7 tips for selling in an economic downturn by Gavin Ingham
Why postcard marketing works so well in the internet age by Bob Leduc
US recessions and expansions from The Great Depression to today

Click here now to read this issue of Better Business Focus from Bizezia.

Selling In Tough Markets – Free Special Report

Gavin Ingham — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:36:36 +0000

7 strategies for selling more in an economic downturn or recession. This 14 page special report on how your business can not only survive but thrive and grow in even the most difficult of markets is yours to download and read at your leisure. Packed full of strategies, tips and ideas this report will help you, your team and your company to focus in on what’s important – more sales.

I have decided to restrict the downloading of this report for members of GavinIngham.com only but don’t worry if you’re not a member of our sales and business success club as you can download your own private copy of these powerful sales success tips by joining the GavinIngham.com community free here.

As I have talked about over the last few weeks, now is a time of contrast…

Contrast between those who get stuck in and those who give in
Contrast between those who step it up a gear and those who choose to free-wheel
Contrast between those headed for business success and those headed for professional suicide

At GavinIngham.com I am committed to providing you with world-class, sales resources, business reports and information to help you to increase your sales, build your business and achieve your goals. I get a buzz out of reading your emails and comments about your successes and how you have used this material to help you to achieve business and personal success so keep them coming.

So here’s the link for joining and getting your own personal copy of Selling in Tough Markets: 7 Strategies for Selling More in and Economic Downturn or Recession.

Enjoy!

Now Is The Time For Sales Heroes

Gavin Ingham — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 10:26:06 +0000

“It’s not affected me yet!” That’s what most salespeople and busines owners were saying to me about their sales results, when booking motivational speeches and sales training programmes, until a few months ago, “It’s not affected me yet!” Few clients or business people that I meet are saying that now. Far from it. 6 months ago most were hoping that this “correction” (“credit crunch”, “recession”… call it what you will) was going to pass them by if they kept their heads down. They figured that they’d heard doom and gloom from the media before and that it would all blow over and everything would be back to business as normal.

It seems that may not be the case and that with every passing day things keep seeming to get worse. Banks seem to be failing with alarming regularity, no financial institutions seem to be safe and many companies are making redundancies and cost-savings. Everyone seems to be battening down the hatches preparing for the worst.

On a personal level many people are worried about their savings, their investments and their jobs. And don’t even get me started on pensions! This lack of confidence is being carried back into the workplace and is affecting many salespeople, business people and entrepreneurs in the way that they act, how they behave and how they sell – in work and out of it.

Companies are acting the same way and are being cautious; very cautious. And rightly so. It’s right for companies to be pulling in their belts and preparing for what could well be tough times ahead. It’s right for companies to be prudent in how they spend their money. It’s right that we all reassess what we spend our hard earned cash on.

The times of credit, credit , credit are over… probably for good… and this is going to make the job of a professional salesperson harder in the future, potentially much harder, but also very, very important.

In the boom times that we have been experiencing, many salespeople didn’t need to be very good at what they did. I have long said that many so called salespeople in many supposedly high-end industries were little more than order takers. Well if there ‘aint no easy orders, there ‘aint going to be much for them to do in the future.

I have privately, and to my inner circle, predicted that many salespeople had a rude awakening coming when their markets changed and that failing to invest in themselves, their own personal development, their sales career and failing to learn to sell properly was like sleep walking into a furnace – lethal if you don’t realise you have before the door shuts behind you!

This is serious. This isn’t no X-Factor, fantasy football or fairy tale; this is real life and real life doesn’t rely on one good song to make your fortune and get you out of the smelly stuff. Real life requires consistent work to improve and better yourself and your business. Real life requires consistent effort and motivation. Real life requires you to have the ability to get up again when all around you give up.

Real life requires sales heroes.

Sales heroes know that they have to keep getting up when all around them fall. Sales heroes know that they have to keep persisting when all around them give up. Sales heroes know that they need to be 100% on top of their game.

Let’s get one thing straight, there is still business out there. You may have to work harder to get it. You may have to work smarter to get it. You may have to be a better salesperson than you are today to get it. But get it you can, if you want to and if you’re prepared to put the effort in.

One area that deserves more effort and energy in today’s markets is prospecting. Prospecting is the very life blood of salespeople and is essential in all markets and critical in tough markets like the ones that we currently face. Prospecting is the very air that you and your business require to breathe. But it’s an area that many sales and business people do not do consistently enough. And one area of prospecting that is avoided studiously by many is cold calling…

Many salespeople believe that cold calling doesn’t work – they don’t know how to do it properly.
Many salespeople don’t get the results that they deserve when cold calling – they don’t know the correct skills.
Many salespeople aren’t consistent enough cold callers – they don’t know the mindsets and strategies of sales superstars.
Many salespeople do no prospecting other than cold calling – they’re one-trick-ponies and no-one likes that!

Cold calling may not be right for every industry and for every product, service or solution but in many industries and situations cold calling is a proven, measurable and cost-effective strategy for creating new leads, new opportunities and new clients. As part of your lead generation strategy, cold calling more than likely will have an important role to play.

I recently recorded some short video clips on various sales training and business development subjects which were going to be sold as bitesize sales training and development clips but I have decided that special times require special actions so on my website you will find a short, snappy 10 minute video on how to become a confident and effective cold caller.

Its’ yours to watch for free, all I ask is that when you have benefited from this clip, please forward it to a salesperson colleague, a sales manager or a friend who will also benefit and encourage them to join my Sales Success newsletter too. I have embedded the video from Youtube so that it is easy for you to forward the video or you can just forward the link to the free sales training, cold calling webpage.

http://www.gaviningham.com/2008/10/10/10-tips-for-confident-cold-calling-sales-training-video-1/.

I suspect there are going to be some more bad news headlines this week and plenty more doom and gloom from the media. Why not join me and swim against the current this week? It’s time for us salespeople to take a hold of this economy… watch and enjoy my video and then get out there and make things happen for you and for your business. I know that’s what I am going to do.

Have a great week and sell with passion.

7 Tips For Selling In An Economic Downturn

Gavin Ingham — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 10:33:19 +0000

It’s hard to look at this week and to not worry about the impact that current events might have on sales. Many of you may be reading this and thinking, “They already have”. Every media outlet, every paper, every radio station and (seemingly) everybody is talking about events. Even people whom I have never heard talk about economics or the economy have had something to say – usually negative!

I was listening to the radio on the way home from my Close the Sale seminar last night and they spoke to someone who said that he was going to put his money under the bed because he didn’t trust banks. You know the kind of person; one of those “random” types that the research crew see wandering down the street with a can of beer and a kebab in their hand and looking out of their BMWs they deem him to be Mr Average. Anyway, what interested me was not his advice (!) but that he knew what they were talking about at all. I think it’s fair to say that normally, Mr. Average would have little or no awareness of these things.

The message is clear… many people are starting to panic.

Now I am not going to advocate gung-ho tactics. Nor am I going to wax lyrical about how you get what you focus on. Nor am I going to blow hot air up your ass (where did that phrase come from!). You don’t need that.

What we all need is straight talking. What we need is ideas and tactics. What we need are strategies to help us to navigate this choppy water so here is my sales kick up the ass approach to selling in a downturn.

1. Stay positive!

Your attitude determines your altitude. Your attitude determines your ability to access your skill. Your attitude determines your success of failure. If you don’t know that, you should go do something else instead of sales!

Many individuals and companies are starting to droop at the moment like little flowers in the sunshine. They need to give themselves a good dousing with common sense and motivation. Success in every market is totally dependant on attitude. This is even more the case in tough markets.

If you want to fail, get a negative attitude and I can pretty much guarantee you failure. Clients buy on emotion and you’ll never create emotion by going through the motions. Work on staying upbeat and positive. Clients have enough doom and gloom thrown at them from the media and their colleagues, they don’t want it from you too!

2. Believe you can!

I know of one large company who have just laid off their sales training department seeing it as a luxury! This is sheer fool’s folly and the directors need their heads banging together. What’s worse is that they aren’t even suffering any negative affects in their business at the moment. They soon will. Sales training and development is essential in any market, particularly tough ones. Sales training teaches your staff the skills that they require to do the job properly. Tough markets require top skills.Changing markets require changing sales skills. Sharpening your sales skills requires sales training and development.

What’s more, investing in your staff builds the belief that you believe in them and that your company is going to thrive. Cutting training teaches the exact opposite. Staff who believed that their company was “rock solid” won’t now. They’ll question, worry and share their fears and soon feelings will become beliefs and beliefs will affect their activity and their results. They will achieve what you believe. Imagination will become reality.

What you believe about this market is going to determine what you get. There’s plenty of negativity out there, don’t let you, your team and your business be a victim of this. What are you going to do to build, support and nurture positive beliefs about your company, sales and success?

3. Prospect! Prospect! Prospect!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the lifeblood of salespeople is prospecting. No matter how good a salesperson you are, prospecting is critical for your success. The more clients you call, the more chance you have of closing more sales. This is not a case of quantity or quality because quantity and quality are not mutually exclusive.

You need quantity and quality. If your conversion ratio is down, up your activity. If your existing clients are pulling in their belts, ring some more. When everyone else is sitting on their arses, get out there and meet people. Selling is not complicated, are you up for it?

4. Visit more clients!

In the busy times we often neglect some of our clients. Maybe we take on a new piece of business with a client but we don’t get chance to meet them as often as we’d like (or at all!). Maybe we have existing clients that we’d like to see but we don’t have to, so we do something else instead.

In a downturn clients want reassurance that they are working with the best, that their suppliers are thriving and that their supply lines are rock solid. Take some time out to plan which clients of yours would benefit from a face to face visit, a lunch or a coffee and make that call!

5. Check commitments!

Salespeople who learn to sell in easy markets cut corners. Not because they’re lazy but because they don’t know any better. Dotting the “I”s and crossing the “t”s is not so essential in booming markets because busy markets are sellers markets. Busy markets pick up the slack. Qualifying properly is still important but it is possible to succeed by doing a reasonable job rather than a perfect job.

Tough markets are not like this. In tough markets you need to check commitments. You cannot afford to be working on client opportunities where you end up giving “free consultancy” or where your client is just on a “shopping comparison trip”. The key to gaining commitments is asking the right questions and this is something that I teach in both my Close the Deal seminar and my Professional Selling Skills seminar.

6. Ask for referrals!

Few salespeople ever ask for referrals. Fewer still always ask for referrals. Most never ask for referrals. This is because clients can and do say “No” so it is often easier to just not ask than to risk yet another rejection.

Asking for referrals should be built into what you do. Asking for referrals should be mandatory for you, your sales colleagues and your sales team. Sure, you’ll get some refusals but if you ask at the right time and in the right way you will get some fantastic leads and introductions and you will grow your business with quality prospects.

Know a salesperson, sales manager, director, entrepreneur or business owner who would benefit from reading my blog and newsletter? It’ll take you two minutes to send them a quick email telling them to have a look at www.GavinIngham.com.

7. Strengthen relationships!

Most salespeople do not spend enough time thinking about the quality of the relationships that they hold with their clients. There are many aspects of your relationship with your clients and spending time strengthening and improving those relationships will encourage loyalty, openness and partnership in all markets not just tough ones.

Think about the various aspects of your relationships with individual clients (for example the awareness they have your company, how they view your business, how they view you, your personal relationship, your business conversations…) and devise a plan of action for improving and strengthening those. Start with your key target clients now.

So there wer are, 7 tips for selling in tough markets. Go grab yourself a cup of coffee, give yourself a talking to and plan what you’re going to do to make the rest of the year and 2009 a great time for you and for your business.

Sales Training Advice For Muppets!

Gavin Ingham — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 10:52:27 +0000

On Sunday this week I went to look at a new build apartment in a converted manor house in Bolton that I thought might have rental potential and I had the delight of two salespeople who really need to get themselves onto one of my sales training seminars. With the housing sales markets somewhat volatile at the moment I am thinking about searching out a bargain. The sun was shining and the sky was blue and I drove into the gardens of this house with the roof down and parked next to two somewhat dilapidated 4-5 year old common or garden hatchbacks.

On first impressions, the house looked nice – a quiet leafy suburb of Bolton surrounded by some largish detached houses sporting nice cars, nice people and boasting a nice looking tennis club. A good potential let for a professional couple maybe? Walking towards the property I had a good feeling so I opened the door with a smile and saw two late twenties, early thirties women, both smartly dressed and both looking like they could be the agents in charge.

Smiling at them they smiled back. One of them was standing in what I assume was the “sales” area and the other was standing inside the show flat. Walking towards the show flat I said, “Hello”. The woman in the flat said, “I’m sorry, we’re shutting. We close at 5pm.” I looked at my watch and she quickly added, “We leave at 5pm.”

My watch read 455pm.

Now I am no red Indian scout but these two did not look like they had been busy. Their books were away, their desks were cleared and their cars were clearly positioned for a quick getaway. I don’t know how long they had been sitting there but the sign had said 10-5 so I am guessing at least 7 hours.

Now look! Everyone needs boundaries. Everyone needs to go home sometimes and I accept that most people would want to get off home pretty sharpish on a Sunday. But at the expense of a potential sale?

How long would it have taken them to show me quickly around the flat? How much commission could they have made as a result of showing me around? At the very least, they could have taken my name, invited me back or scheduled another visit whilst building rapport.

But no, nothing, zip, nada.

Some people just deserve what they get in life. Some salespeople deserve what they get (or don’t get as the case may be) and these two win my vote for the sales loser of the year competition. With the housing market as it is at the moment you’d think that they’d pull their fingers out wouldn’t you. Many companies associated with the housing trade have been making lay offs . Many salespeople are sitting around hoping that it won’t happen to them. But hope is not a good sales ally. Hope will not generate leads in any market let alone a tough one. Hope will not build rapport with your customers. Hope will not close deals for you.

Only action builds businesses.

Whatever your market is like at the moment you need to take responsibility for your own sales and your own success. You need to take action…

So there are less clients around… get in to work earlier and stay later!
So your sales conversion ratios are falling… do more prospecting!
So there is less money around… learn to sell better!
So clients are feeling nervous at investing… build more rapport, more trust and more credibility!

Sales is not rocket science, it’s common sense and as I said at the start of the year, “some people are going to crash and some people are going to fly”. If many of the pundits are going to be believed these “tough” times could go on for some time…

What are you going to do about it?

You should start by reading my 5 top tips for selling in a recession and then get yourself ahead of the game by attending one of my sales training seminars or investing in one of my sales boosting books, audios or DVDs. Until next time, sell with passion.